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Tuesday, 13 November 2012

I had a lovely request recently that I thought I'd share with you. I was contacted by a lady all the way from America to make a special version of The Woodland Picnic plate for another lady she had met as part of a support group over facebook.

The group were brought together under tragic circumstances, by all having lost babies to a condition know as pprom. The lady explained to me that they had all become firm friends after sharing their feelings and supporting each other through what must be a truly terrible time. They wanted to send a present to celebrate the arrival of baby Ada, a baby that had survived after this tragic time.
I just found the sentiment of this group so touching, don't you think? The lady asked me to include a small rainbow on the design, which is a symbol of the 'pprom warriors' - it show the rainbow that can happen after a storm. And we simply included a 'love from around the world' message to wish the new mum love from all the group.

I was so thrilled to be asked to help share this group's love and support for each other :)

Saturday, 10 November 2012

Hello there! Just thought I'd share a couple of custom plate designs I have made for happy little people recently....

The first was for a friend of Mr Phil's Dad, Maria - who was celebrating a big birthday recently. We thought a plate with her family (including her beloved doggie) and also a couple of iconic buildings that suggest her heritage - The Liver Building in Liverpool (where she's from) and The Grammar School Building in Market Harborough (where she lives now) would be perfect, and apparently it went down well!

The second was for a lovely couple who recently got married in the gorgeous resort of Marbella. The setting was an obvious choice for the plate so I went about capturing them.

and here is the finished plate...

Do get in contact if you'd like a custom design, they are £45 including delivery :)

Wednesday, 7 November 2012

Illustrator Tom Whalen has created these vintage inspired versions of Walt Disney classics, aren't they just divine?

At school (I work part time as an Art Technician if you didn't know!) I've just been working on some class resources for a 'Characters' project and I looked at Disney as an example of 'Characters in Entertainment' and learnt some fascinating stuff, the Disney brothers were real pioneers of their age.

I have to admit, while starting to make baby plates seemed a really natural and perfect move for my designs at the time, I had little idea that they would strike such a cord with people, and of course I am super thrilled with it and will go on introducing new designs (feel free to suggest any you'd like to see too!)

The baby plates are now listed on the brilliant and inspiring baby present website Born Gifted, a huge treasure trove of ideas for new babies and their parents, so do go take a look!

We're loving the idea of spreading the new parent love far and wide, so do get in contact if you think the baby plates would fit in well with your brand, simply contact sally@thelittlepeach.co.uk

Friday, 2 November 2012

Here are Peach Towers we are thrilled to be busting our way onto some amazing new stockists shelves!

The first we'd like to introduce you to is the bright and colourful gift bazaar that is 'Nook and Cranny' a store snuggled within the tip-top-tastic Bluecoat Gallery in the fine city of Liverpool.

Nook and Cranny sell all sorts of wonderful things, from art prints to not-of-the-norm homewares, and I'm really jealous that I haven't had chance to go in person yet! We will plan a trip to see Mr Phil's little sister soon (who is basically a scouser now after her few years studying there)

So if you're up in that neck of the woods soon, go check it out. Here is a lovely blog post they wrote about us :)

And if you're interested in stocking The Little Peach, do get in contact (sally@thelittlepeach.co.uk) we want to spread our peachy goodness far and wide!

Thursday, 1 November 2012

Those who know me will know about my since-child fascination with all things Space, my La Luna print is a small nod to that (and be sure there will be lots more where that little sputnik came from!) so when I came across the magic drawings of Peter P. Plasencia, I was instantly drawn in.

Not only is his use of scale phenomenal, he has also had some space
inspired themes to work with. These gouache monochrome illustrations run
alongside a book about Jules Verne (swoon) called 'The Man Who Invented the Future'
by Franz Born. It's the life story of the man credited as being the
first writer of science fiction. He's also someone I'm been fascinated
with since I went on Space Mountain with my Mum at Disneyland Paris aged 10.
That stiflingly hot summer we queued up for that ride, which was originally called 'De la Terre à la Lune' (perhaps that's where I got the inspiration for La Luna from!) for what seemed
like many hours, but the wait wasn't too bad as the design of the
queuing areas were so fascinating.

Peter P. Plasencia also worked on another astronomic delight called 'The Space Alphabet' by Irene Zacks. I'm really in love with the muted colour palette, don't you think it's beautiful?

I love how you can see how the old printing techniques, although restrictive in one way, ultimately led to such an inventiveness in style and form.

Isn't it just magic when you get to a certain age and your friends all of a sudden start getting married and getting pregnant? It's like there's part of you that doesn't feel old enough (when will we ever!) but then you stop and think 'oh yeah, we aren't 20 anymore!'

This magic seems to be happening to me at the moment, and far from being scary (well most of the time) I'm actually excited about it. It's like one party is over (the party where you stay up till dawn and still have energy for carrying on the fun) and the next party is starting (the one where you all stay in to watch X-factor cos the kids have to be in bed at 8pm and you're too tired from doing kid-stuff all day.) Man how the times have changed.

The other weekend, we proved our age by having such a 'party' at my friend Liam's house in Manchester. My friend of a whole decade ago, Miss Tie came down from Glasgow with her newly formed family in tow, Mister Jeffory and little miss Molly the new baby! Friends living so far away really does suck so we all decided to meet in the middle (thanks Liam!) and even my old housemate Lizzy Bee was there!

We went for a wander in Gatley where Liam lives and he was keen to show this old cafe that has seemingly stayed in a time warp from the 60's.....how cool!? It even had an old meat slicer and vintage radio on top of the rickety fridge. I do hope this place stays true like this forever.

So anyway...onto the baby cuddling! Molly is quite simply the cutest baby I have ever seen - I mean look at that hair! Apparently her hair is so thick that it even showed up on the ultrasound, and you literally cannot make it go down, it is permanently thrust in a funky little quiff!

She also has the best eyes that get permanently fixed on mysteriously nothing behind you...it's what was cracking me and Mr Phil up in this picture, and just about when I realised who she reminded me of - a Monchichi! Do you remember those?

In honour of Miss Molly's blessed arrival in our lives, I decided it was only proper that she should have her own custom baby plate!

Having known her parents for many a year I knew straight away how I'd like the composition to go - it HAD to be musical themed (I don't think I know anyone more into their music than them) I got sketching, would you like to see how I design these plates? Well I'm going to show you!

I was thinking straight away of having the family dancing around a record player so start to block out where I want the figures to go - it always starts with simple shapes so I can plot/rub out/plot/ rub out to get it just right. I like to work within the size of the plate from the beginning too...it can be a slightly restrictive shape so best to always have it in mind.

The same basic drawing gets added to on top of the sketch and I'm now starting to add more details like outfits, where the text will go and I'm starting to think about the colours I might use too.

Because I want my drawings to have a 'screen printed' feel to them, even when I don't screen print I still work in the same way. I photocopy the original sketch (always good to keep the original safe just in case) and block out where I want the colours to go. I decided for this drawing to keep it to a simple 3 colour plan - grey, mint green and pink.

Next is the good old tracing paper stage - I go over each colour layer with a trusty black fineliner, making each part of the image into a black 'blob'. After this I scan in and reform the image back together using photoshop and illustrator. Illustrator is really handy if you like to make changes later on, like change a colour or add detail.

I added a few subtle shades of the mint and pink and some texture in the background. There are also some personal hints to their life as a couple - like the Mr Brightside record sleeve, a song that was big when they were starting their life together :)

And here it is...the finished plate before it was shipped off up to Glasgow!

I think I love this design the best of any I've done yet, as they are so special to me and I (hope) think I have captured who they are quite well!

I can't wait to go up to Glasgow this weekend to see it on Miss Molly's wall :)